Arizona Courts

The Arizona Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the cancellation of the May 17 gubernatorial recall election because its target, former Gov. Evan Mecham, already has been removed from office. The high court, in a 4-1 decision, ordered acting Secretary of State Karen Osborne to cancel the election, effectively guaranteeing that Rose Mofford will serve the remainder of Mecham's four-year term, through 1990.

Former NFL player Darren Sharper, charged with drugging and raping two women in Hollywood, was ordered Thursday to remain in jail without bail after an Arizona grand jury indicted him on charges of committing two sexual assaults in Arizona. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Renee Korn rejected efforts by Sharper's attorneys, Blair Berk and Larry Levine, to have the Super Bowl-winning safety released from L.A. County custody on house arrest with GPS monitoring. They had asked that he be allowed to surrender to authorities in Arizona, where an indictment was unsealed this week.

Former NFL player Darren Sharper, charged with drugging and raping two women in Hollywood, was ordered Thursday to remain in jail without bail after an Arizona grand jury indicted him on charges of committing two sexual assaults in Arizona. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Renee Korn rejected efforts by Sharper's attorneys, Blair Berk and Larry Levine, to have the Super Bowl-winning safety released from L.A. County custody on house arrest with GPS monitoring. They had asked that he be allowed to surrender to authorities in Arizona, where an indictment was unsealed this week.

It's either a small fix to protect the free exercise of religion or a "no cake for gays" bill that would invite businesses to discriminate, depending on whom you talk to. The legislation, SB 1062, would bolster a business owner's right to defend refusing service to someone when the owner believes doing so would violate their the practice and observance of religion. Supporters call it a "religious freedom" bill. As Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer weighs whether to sign the measure into law, here's a look at what the proposal is all about. Why was SB 1062 proposed?

A federal appeals court in San Francisco upheld the murder conviction and death sentence of John Harvey Adamson in the 1976 car-bombing death of Arizona Republic reporter Don Bolles. The action by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals apparently leaves only a U.S. Supreme Court appeal remaining for Adamson, whose charge was increased to first-degree murder after he changed his mind about testifying against two other men. Arizona courts have already upheld his conviction.

It's either a small fix to protect the free exercise of religion or a "no cake for gays" bill that would invite businesses to discriminate, depending on whom you talk to. The legislation, SB 1062, would bolster a business owner's right to defend refusing service to someone when the owner believes doing so would violate their the practice and observance of religion. Supporters call it a "religious freedom" bill. As Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer weighs whether to sign the measure into law, here's a look at what the proposal is all about. Why was SB 1062 proposed?

Representatives of the black community were outraged Wednesday when an all-white jury acquitted two grocery employees charged in last summer's killing of a man suspected of writing bad checks. While friends and relatives of defendants Marvin Davis and Michael Torres cheered the verdicts in court, a tearful Carolyn Lowery, executive director of the Arizona Black United Fund, stood and shouted, "Murderers!"

In a federal courtroom reconfigured to accommodate a rash of high-tech equipment, final jury selection began Monday in the civil fraud and racketeering trial of former Lincoln Savings & Loan owner Charles H. Keating Jr. and more than a dozen co-defendants. U.S. District Judge Richard M. Bilby said his courtroom looked "ready for a rock concert."

Evan Mecham may run for governor again this fall despite being impeached and removed from the office in 1988, Arizona's Supreme Court ruled in Phoenix. Voters, not the courts, should decide whether the former governor is worthy of holding public office again, the high court ruled in unanimously rejecting a challenge to Mecham's comeback bid. "Impeachment, essentially a political process, is not subject to judicial review," the justices said.

Regulators criticized: Meanwhile, a federal Bankruptcy Court judge in Phoenix has criticized federal regulators for making "one error after another" in managing a deal involving one of 11 bankrupt subsidiaries of Lincoln Savings. Judge Sarah Sharer Curley said late Monday that regulators made an "incomplete analysis of problems" in overseeing a $10.5-million line of credit to Sterling Homes Design Inc.

A would-be city council candidate in Arizona will not appear on an upcoming ballot because her English skills are insufficient, the state's Supreme Court decided Tuesday. In a brief two-page order, the high court affirmed a Superior Court judge's ruling, which struck Alejandrina Cabrera's name from the March ballot in the town of San Luis. The case, which attracted international media attention, was closely watched because of possible legal repercussions for other border communities where Spanish predominates.

President Obama on Wednesday nominated Arizona Supreme Court Justice Andrew D. Hurwitz to a seat on the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, his third proposal in recent weeks to fill vacancies on the overwhelmed Western appellate bench. Hurwitz, 64, has been on the Arizona high court for eight years after a diverse career as a law clerk, a private practice litigator and partner in Phoenix's Osborn Maledon firm. He also was a law professor, a judge pro tempore and a senior staff member to three governors of the Grand Canyon State.

American Indians' right to a fair jury is not violated when federal criminal trials in Arizona are transferred from Prescott to Phoenix, where the Indian percentage of the population is much lower, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday. In a 2-1 ruling upholding a Navajo man's convictions for sex crimes, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said the disparities were irrelevant because there was no evidence that Indians were systematically excluded from the jury.

In Phoenix, the Arizona Supreme Court opened the way for a 14-year-old girl to receive a late-term abortion. The high court voted 3-2 to overturn an appeals judge's ruling Saturday that blocked the girl from heading to Kansas to abort her 24-week-old fetus, said John MacDonald, the Supreme Court's spokesman. No Arizona clinics provide abortions after 20 weeks.

The Arizona Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down as unconstitutional a voter-approved law requiring that official state and local business be conducted only in English. Opponents of the measure branded it racist, while supporters called it common sense and promised to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. State Sen. Pete Rios, a Democrat who was among the plaintiffs in the case decided Tuesday, said the measure's supporters played on unjustified fears of those who can speak only English. Robert D.

After consulting with Orange County authorities during the day, the Yavapai County prosecutor indicated Monday that Arizona would probably take the lead in trying John Joseph Famalaro for the murder of Denise Huber. Generally, the trial would take place where the murder occurred, but in Huber's case that may be impossible to ascertain, Yavapai County Atty. Charles Hastings said.

Government lawyers and private attorneys for bondholders in the Lincoln Savings & Loan scandal were overjoyed last week about a sweeping order by a federal judge in Arizona, but the joy may not last beyond today. U.S. District Judge Richard M. Bilby decided last week in Tucson that four major law firms will have to turn over their notes and other internal documents to the government and the class-action attorneys. Such internal information, called work product, is rarely available to outsiders.

Attorneys for bondholders caught in the collapse of Lincoln Savings & Loan are bringing ever more defendants to court to account for their role in advising the Irvine thrift and its Phoenix parent company, American Continental Corp. They recently filed a sixth amended complaint that adds as defendants five attorneys, two law firms and six other individuals and companies.

In a federal courtroom reconfigured to accommodate a rash of high-tech equipment, final jury selection began Monday in the civil fraud and racketeering trial of former Lincoln Savings & Loan owner Charles H. Keating Jr. and more than a dozen co-defendants. U.S. District Judge Richard M. Bilby said his courtroom looked "ready for a rock concert."

Representatives of the black community were outraged Wednesday when an all-white jury acquitted two grocery employees charged in last summer's killing of a man suspected of writing bad checks. While friends and relatives of defendants Marvin Davis and Michael Torres cheered the verdicts in court, a tearful Carolyn Lowery, executive director of the Arizona Black United Fund, stood and shouted, "Murderers!"